Al Jazeera Special Covers Advance of Fundamentalism in US Military

A June 23, 2009 report from Al Jazeera (English) by Josh Rushing, "Fault Lines - Religion in the Military", expertly covers a topic the US media has been reluctant to address: an aggressive effort, often abusive, coercive and even illegal, to advance a heavily sectarian, supremacist form of Christianity in the United States military.

Rushing, a United States Marine for 15 years, explained to Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft that he was initially very skeptical but had become personally convinced while researching his story. When Rushing told Scowcroft, "[Al Jazeera] received ...video of missionaries embedding with the US troops," Scowcroft responded, "...I would be very surprised if that were true. Missionaries embedded with the troops - I find a very unusual statement." Rushing then informed Scowcroft that three half-hour show segments were aired on the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) popular reality TV show "Travel The Road," in which the show's central characters, "extreme" Christian missionaries Will Decker and Tim Scott, were embedded with US troops in Afghanistan and illegally proselytized and distributed native-language copies of the New Testament. "Travel The Road" claims to reach three million viewers per episode. Scowcraft, incredulous, testily declared he'd look into the matter. The reaction, denial, was a common and maybe even typical one for people confronted with verifiable, new information that contradicts their preexisting cognitive maps - they try to deny or block out the contradictory data.

[below, part 2 of Al Jazeera special report: Brent Scowcroft is incredulous]

[below: video clip from documentary aired on Trinity Broadcast Network, shows Christian missionaries embedded with US troops in Afghanistan]